Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today the appointment of Charles W. James, 53, Choctaw Indian born in the Indian community of Kanima, Okla., to the post of Area Director, Anadarko Area Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior.
"James has a solid administrative background combined with a feel for Oklahoma and a knowledge of varied Indian cultures," Commissioner Thompson pointed out. "He brings to the Anadarko Area Directorship 20 years of government experience, three of those years with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. We are fortunate to have such a man for this job at this time.”
James attended Northern Arizona State College at Flagstaff, now Northern Arizona University. He was a paratrooper in World War II serving in Belgium, England, France, and Germany with the U.S. Army.
The Anadarko Area Director began his administrative career with the Federal Government in 1953, when he became an organization and methods examiner with the Navajo ordnance Depot, Department of the Al~, Flagstaff, Ariz. He worked with Navajo Indian people in this capacity and in 1956 moved from the post of examiner to supervise other examiners.
He became a management analyst with the White Sands Missile Range, an Army missile-testing center in New Mexico, in 1958. He moved from that position to a supervisory post at White Sands in which he directed the entire manpower program of the range.
James was appointed Superintendent of the Yankton Agency, Bureau of Indian Affairs, in 1911 and. moved to the job of Director pf Support Services, Aberdeen Area Office, Bureau of Indian Affairs, .in 1973. He was appointed Acting Area Director of the Aberdeen Area Office July 1, 1974.
He is married to the former Beatrice Lumsdem of Oklahoma. They have two daughters, Sandra Strickland, Ashburn, Georgia, and Vicki Tunnell, El Paso, Tex.
